Part 14

Foreseen in the vision of sages, Foretold when martyrs bled, She was born of the longing of ages, By the truth of the noble dead, And the faith of the living, fed! No blood in her lightest veins Frets at remembered chains, Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head In her form and features still, The unblenching Puritan will, Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace, The Quaker truth and sweetness, And the strength of the danger-girdled race Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. From the homes of all, where her being began, She took what she gave to man: Justice that knew no station, Belief as soul decreed, Free air for aspiration, Free force for independent deed. She takes, but to give again, As the sea returns the rivers in rain; And gathered the chosen of her seed From the hunted of every crown and creed. Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine; Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine; Her France pursues some dream divine; Her Norway keeps his mountain-pine; Her Italy waits by the western brine; And, broad-based under all Is planted England’s oaken-hearted mood, As rich in fortitude As e’er went world-ward from the island wall. Fused in her candid light, To one strong race all races here united; Tongues melt in hers; hereditary foemen Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan; ’Twas glory, once, to be a Roman; She makes it glory, now, to be a man.

“SCUM O’ THE EARTH”[16]

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

I

At the gate of the West I stand, On the isle where the nations throng. We call them “scum o’ the earth”;

Stay, are we doing you wrong, Young fellow from Socrates’ land?— You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong Fresh from the master Praxiteles’ hand? So you’re of Spartan birth? Descended, perhaps, from one of the band— Deathless in story and song— Who combed their long hair at Thermopylæ’s pass?... Ah, I forget the straits, alas! More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth, That have doomed you to march in our “immigrant class” Where you’re nothing but “scum o’ the earth.”

II

You Pole with the child on your knee, What dower bring you to the land of the free? Hark! does she croon That sad little tune That Chopin once found on his Polish lea And mounted in gold for you and for me? Now a ragged young fiddler answers In wild Czech melody That Dvořak took whole from the dancers. And the heavy faces bloom In the wonderful Slavik way; The little, dull eyes, the brows a-gloom, Suddenly dawn like the day. While, watching these folk and their mystery, I forget that they’re nothing worth; That Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians, And men of all Slavik nations Are “polacks”—and “scum o’ the earth.”

III

Genoese boy of the level brow, Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes Astare at Manhattan’s pinnacles now In the first, sweet shock of a hushed surprise; Within your far-rapt seer’s eyes I catch the glow of the wild surmise That played on the Santa Maria’s prow In that still gray dawn, Four centuries gone, When a world from the wave began to rise. Oh, it’s hard to foretell what high emprise Is the goal that gleams When Italy’s dreams Spread wing and sweep into the skies. Cæsar dreamed him a world ruled well; Dante dreamed Heaven out of Hell; Angelo brought us there to dwell; And you, are you of a different birth?— You’re only a “dago,”—and “scum o’ the earth”!

IV

Stay, are we doing you wrong Calling you “scum o’ the earth,” Man of the sorrow-bowed head, Of the features tender yet strong,— Man of the eyes full of wisdom and mystery Mingled with patience and dread? Have I not known you in history, Sorrow-bowed head? Were you the poet-king, worth Treasures of Ophir unpriced? Were you the prophet, perchance, whose art Foretold how the rabble would mock That shepherd of spirits, erelong, Who should carry the lambs on his heart And tenderly feed his flock? Man—lift that sorrow-bowed head. Lo! ’tis the face of the Christ!

The vision dies at its birth. You’re merely a butt for our mirth. You’re a “sheeny”—and therefore despised And rejected as “scum o’ the earth.”

V

Countrymen, bend and invoke Mercy for us blasphemers, For that we spat on these marvelous folk, Nations of darers and dreamers, Scions of singers and seers, Our peers, and more than our peers. “Rabble and refuse,” we name them And “scum o’ the earth,” to shame them. Mercy for us of the few, young years, Of the culture so callow and crude, Of the hands so grasping and rude, The lips so ready for sneers At the sons of our ancient more-than-peers. Mercy for us who dare despise Men in whose loins our Homer lies; Mothers of men who shall bring to us The glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss; Children in whose frail arms shall rest Prophets and singers and saints of the West. Newcomers all from the eastern seas, Help us incarnate dreams like these. Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong. Help us to father a nation, strong In the comradeship of an equal birth, In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth.

LIBERTY AND UNION ONE AND INSEPARABLE

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union that we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thought should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, _What is all this worth?_ nor those other words of delusion and folly,—_Liberty first and Union afterwards_; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,—_Liberty_ and _Union_, _now_ and _forever_, _one_ and _inseparable_!

ADDRESS TO LIBERTY

BY WILLIAM COWPER

Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies That earth hath seen, or fancy could devise, Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand, With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair As ever dressed a bank, or scented summer air.

Duly, as ever on the mountain’s height The peep of morning shed a dawning light; Again, when evening in her sober vest Drew the gray curtain of the fading west; My soul should yield thee willing thanks and praise For the chief blessings of my fairest days: But that were sacrilege: praise is not thine, But His, who gave thee, and preserves thee mine; Else I would say,—and, as I spake, bid fly A captive bird into the boundless sky,— This rising realm adores thee: thou art come From Sparta hither, and art here at home; We feel thy force still active; at this hour Enjoys immunity from priestly power; While conscience, happier than in ancient years, Owns no superior but the God she fears. Propitious Spirit! yet expunge a wrong Thy rights have suffered, and our land, too long; Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share The fears and hopes of a commercial care; Prisons expect the wicked, and were built To bind the lawless, and to punish guilt; But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood: And honest merit stands on slippery ground Where covert guile and artifice abound. Let just restraint, for public peace designed, Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind,— The foe of virtue has no claim to thee,— But let insolvent innocence go free.

THE TORCH OF LIBERTY

BY THOMAS MOORE

I saw it all in Fancy’s glass— Herself, the fair, the wild magician, Who bade this splendid day-dream pass, And named each gilded apparition. ’Twas like a torch-race,—such as they Of Greece performed, in ages gone, When the fleet youths, in long array, Passed the bright torch triumphant on.

I saw the expectant nations stand To catch the coming flame in turn; I saw, from ready hand to hand, The clear, though struggling, glory burn. And oh, their joy, as it came near, ’Twas, in itself, a joy to see; While Fancy whispered in my ear, “That torch they pass is Liberty!”

And each, as she received the flame, Lighted her altar with its ray; Then, smiling, to the next who came, Speeded it on its sparkling way. From Albion first, whose ancient shrine Was furnished with the flame already, Columbia caught the boon divine, And lit a flame, like Albion’s, steady.

Shine, shine forever, glorious flame, Divinest gift of gods to men! From Greece thy earliest splendor came, To Greece thy ray returns again. Take, Freedom, take thy radiant round; When dimmed, revive; when lost, return; Till not a shrine through earth be found On which thy glories shall not burn!

HOROLOGE OF LIBERTY

ANONYMOUS

The world heard: the battle of Lexington—one; the Declaration of Independence—two; the surrender of Burgoyne—three; the siege of Yorktown—four; the treaty of Paris—five; the inauguration of Washington—six; and then it was the sunrise of a new day, of which we have seen yet only the glorious forenoon.

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

BY GEORGE BANCROFT

In the fullness of time, a Republic rose up in the wilderness of America. Thousands of years had passed away before this child of the ages could be born. From whatever there was of good in the systems of former centuries she drew her nourishment; the wrecks of the past were her warnings. With the deepest sentiment of faith fixed in her inmost nature, she disenthralled religion from bondage to temporal power, that her worship might be worship only in spirit and in truth.

The wisdom which had passed from India through Greece, with what Greece had added of her own; the jurisprudence of Rome; the mediæval municipalities; the Teutonic method of representation, the political experience of England, the benignant wisdom of the expositors of the law of nature and of nations in France and Holland, all shed on her their selectest influence. She washed the gold of political wisdom from the sands wherever it was found; she cleft it from the rocks; she gleaned it among ruins. Out of all the discoveries of statesmen and sages, out of all the experience of past human life, she compiled a perennial political philosophy, the primordial principles of national ethics.

The wise men of Europe sought the best government in a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; and America went behind these names to extract from them the vital elements of social forms, and blend them harmoniously in the free Commonwealth, which comes nearest to the illustration of the natural equality of all men. She entrusted the guardianship of established rights to law; the movements of reform to the spirit of the people, and drew her force from the happy reconciliation of both.

A NEW NATIONAL HYMN

BY FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

Hail, Freedom! thy bright crest And gleaming shield, thrice blest, Mirror the glories of a world thine own. Hail, heaven-born Peace! our sight, Led by thy gentle light, Shows us the paths with deathless flowers strewn. Peace, daughter of a strife sublime, Abide with us till strife be lost in endless time.

Her one hand seals with gold The portals of night’s fold, Her other the broad gates of dawn unbars; O’er silent wastes of snows, Crowning her lofty brows, Gleams high her diadem of northern stars; While, clothed in garlands of warm flowers, Round Freedom’s feet the South her wealth of beauty showers.

Sweet is the toil of peace, Sweet is the year’s increase, To loyal men who live by Freedom’s laws; And in war’s fierce alarms God gives stout hearts and arms To freemen sworn to save a rightful cause. Fear none, trust God, maintain the right, And triumph in unbroken Union’s might.

Welded in war’s fierce flame, Forged on the hearth of fame, The sacred Constitution was ordained; Tried in the fire of time, Tempered in woes sublime, An age was passed and left it yet unstained. God grant its glories still may shine, While ages fade, forgotten, in time’s slow decline!

Honor the few who shared Freedom’s first fight, and dared To face war’s desperate tide at the full flood; Who fell on hard-won ground, And into Freedom’s wound Poured the sweet balsam of their brave hearts’ blood. They fell; but o’er that glorious grave Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.

In radiance heavenly fair, Floats on the peaceful air That flag that never stooped from Victory’s pride; Those stars that softly gleam, Those stripes that o’er us stream, In war’s grand agony were sanctified; A holy standard, pure and free, To light the home of peace, or blaze in victory.

Father, whose mighty power Shields us through life’s short hour, To Thee we pray: Bless us and keep us free; All that is past forgive; Teach us, henceforth, to live That, through our country, we may honor Thee; And, when this mortal life shall cease, Take Thou, at last, our souls to Thine eternal peace.

VII

FICTION

JIM’S AUNT

BY FRANCES BENT DILLINGHAM

“I wish you could take him in,” the minister said, almost entreatingly. “He isn’t a bad boy, you know; his family is quite respectable; but when his aunt said she couldn’t afford to take him into the country with her children, it seemed too bad for him to stay in the city.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Miss Lucinda assented hastily. “If only he wasn’t a boy!”

The minister sighed. “I want you to do what you think best.”

It was Miss Lucinda’s turn to sigh now—a long-drawn breath of surrender. “Well, I’ll take him,” she said.

The minister rose to go. “It’s very kind of you, Miss Tarbox; be sure I appreciate your self-sacrifice;” and then he added, in a hesitating sort of way, “You are always full of good works.”

The color flamed up in Miss Lucinda’s face. “Oh!” she exclaimed, lifting her proud head still higher, “I don’t do anything!” and the minister felt the usual sense of defeat he experienced in Miss Tarbox’s presence.

He was quite dejected as he went down the garden walk. “So excellent a woman,” he murmured to himself, and he mournfully contrasted her uncompromising manner with the flattering air of other single ladies of his parish as he glanced back furtively toward her parlor window.

But Miss Tarbox would have considered it unpardonable coquetry to peep after the minister, since he was an unmarried man, and she an eligible if not youthful spinster, so she went at once into the kitchen to prepare her supper. But the color did not at once fade from her cheeks as she moved about in her rapid, methodical manner, and she thought not so much of the boy who was to come, as of the man who had just gone. If the minister felt overcome in Miss Lucinda’s presence, she, too, had a similar feeling after he had left her with some unspoken word on his lips.

“It seems as though he was going to say something sometimes, but I kill it out of him. I wonder what is the matter with me, anyway?” Miss Lucinda had acquired a habit of talking to herself, and now nodded gravely to her reflection in the little mirror over the kitchen shelf. “I’m not bad-looking and I mean to be pleasant, but, somehow most folks seem kind of afraid of me. I s’pose I have an up-and-coming way with me that scares most of them. I don’t seem to be the sort they take to; though I must say it’s forlorn to be that way,” and the image in the mirror sighed audibly.

When Miss Lucinda had seated herself at her lonely tea-table, her thoughts took another channel. “What in the world am I to do with a boy? He’ll upset things on the table-cloth, and let flies in the house and rub his fingers on the window-pane, and holler. Well, there’s one thing about it, he’s got to mind every word I say to him!” But here Miss Lucinda drew herself up with a jerk. “There you go, Lucinda, complaining of your loneliness, and then finding fault when someone comes to see you; thinking you’re too fond of running things, and then saying you’re going to make this boy do just as you want him to.”

It was only a few days later when the boy came, in company with the minister. He was not so large a boy as Miss Lucinda had expected from his age, and he was rather thin and pale.

“I’ll give him enough to eat, that’s one thing,” she told the minister. “And I’ve been thinking there’s one comfort in a boy: he doesn’t talk so much as a girl—that is, he isn’t likely to.”

“No, he isn’t likely to,” the minister assented, a little doubtfully.

After the minister had gone, Miss Lucinda began to wonder what she should do with the boy the rest of the morning. She found him in the kitchen, his short legs stretched to their utmost, trying to capture two flies buzzing on the window-pane. He paused in his exertions, and turned on her with a beaming smile.

“Hullo! Is dinner ready?” he asked.

Miss Lucinda drew herself up. “We don’t have dinner till twelve o’clock,” she said frigidly.

“Oh, that’s all right; you needn’t hurry,” the boy said pleasantly. “I’m kinder grub-struck, but I guess I kin wait.”

Miss Lucinda stared at him in rebuke. “Perhaps you’d better go out and play,” she suggested, “while I get dinner;” and off he went.

When the dinner-table was laid, Miss Lucinda rang her seldom-used bell out of the back door, and the boy came in promptly, with quite a color in his cheeks.

“My!” he exclaimed, staring at the neat, plentiful table, “ain’t this a feed!”

“You’d better go and wash your hands,” Miss Lucinda suggested, and the boy went cheerily to the sink, scrubbing himself vigorously and then wiping his hands on the spick-and-span roller. Miss Lucinda groaned at the great black marks on the towel, and went out into the kitchen to turn it about so that she might not have to look at them through the dining-room doorway.

“Mercy on us!” she cried in distress as she came out into the kitchen, “you’ve left the door open. The house’ll be full of flies!”

“Now, don’t you trouble,” the boy said soothingly. “I’ll catch every single fly that’s got in. I’m a great flycatcher, I am. I’m used to flies.”

At the table, conversation did not at all flourish. Miss Lucinda had heard of a boy’s appetite, but she had never dreamed of such awful capacity as this young person displayed. After he had taken the first keen edge from his hunger he laid down his knife and fork and looked at her inquiringly.

“Should you mind if I was to call you aunt?” he asked smilingly. “You know I useter live with my aunt, and I’m kinder useter sayin’ it.”

“I think it would be better if you called me Miss Tarbox,” Miss Lucinda said, surprised, but not thrown off her guard.

“That’s rather long,” the boy said meditatively; “but I guess if I say it often enough I kin git it Miss Tarbox, Misstarbox, Misstubox, Misstibox, Miss—”

“Don’t say that over again, for goodness’ sake,” Miss Lucinda said irritably. “What is your name?”

“Well, the whole of it is James Wilson, but I guess you’d better call me Jim. I’m useter that.”

“What did you do this morning?” Miss Tarbox felt called upon to sustain and direct further conversation.

“I went over to see the boy ’cross the street and we’re goin’ to play Indian this afternoon. Did you ever play Indian?”

Miss Tarbox shook her head.

“You stick feathers all ’round your hat, and you make a fire and roast potatoes, and yell and eat the potatoes. That boy is a mighty nice feller. I told him I was stoppin’ with you and goin’ to have a dandy time. I guess he don’t know you very well. I told him I thought you was kinder hard to git acquainted with. He said we’d git our feathers out o’ his hen-yard, and I thought p’r’aps I might bring the potatoes. Do you think you could let me have two potatoes? I won’t eat quite so much next time.”

Miss Lucinda drew a long breath. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll let you have the potatoes.”

“Now that’s real nice. I told him I thought you’d be willin’.”

As soon as dinner was over Miss Lucinda brought the two potatoes from the cellar, but the boy did not go at once; he sat on a chair in the kitchen, and watched her brisk movements as she cleared the table and made ready to wash the dishes.

“Say, you’re awful smart, ain’t you?” he asked after a moment of observation, and Miss Tarbox, somewhat overwhelmed did not reply.

He placed his elbow on his round knee and his chin on his small hand and stared a few moments in silence.

“It looks awful kinder nice the way you hold up your head. Now, my aunt, she kinder slumps along. She’s a real nice woman, you know, but she don’t look’s though she had much gumption.”

Another silence.

“Say, what kin I do?” he asked next.

“Mercy on us!” ejaculated Miss Lucinda, “don’t ask me. I thought you were going to roast potatoes.”

“I thought p’r’aps you might be kinder lonesome all alone, and I’d jest as soon help you wash up. I’m useter it. I kin make beds and sweep and wash dishes and do lots o’ things. Try me and see.”